Title: Trying to improve and harmonise intellectual capital reporting for companies: a theoretical framework

Authors: Nicoleta Maria Ienciu; Marius Ioan Mihuţ

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babeş-Bolyai University, 58-60 Theodor Mihali Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania ' Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babeş-Bolyai University, 58-60 Theodor Mihali Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Abstract: The emergence of the new technological economy mainly driven by information and knowledge is connected with the development of intellectual capital. But how could companies improve their financial and non-financial reporting information about intellectual capital without having a real framework of intellectual capital? The purpose of this paper is to analyse the conceptualisation of intellectual capital within literature and construct a theoretical framework. In this paper, we review and analyse the conceptualisation of intellectual capital within literature from the early 1970s through 2012 in order to trace the evolution of the intellectual capital concept and to develop a theoretical framework which could be employed as a theoretical foundation for future empirical studies related to intellectual capital researches and also for companies to improve and harmonise the reporting of intellectual capital. The framework includes the following types of values: 1) native and acquired (human capital); 2) values related to organisational infrastructure and values related to intellectual property (structural capital); 3) values related to business and to benefices (relational capital).

Keywords: intellectual capital reporting; definitions; classification; theoretical framework; literature review; human capital; organisational infrastructure; intellectual property; structural capital; relational capital.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEA.2015.069947

International Journal of Economics and Accounting, 2015 Vol.6 No.2, pp.125 - 149

Published online: 16 Jun 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article